A new Australian research indicates that children with a stutter   do not suffer disadvantages at school, More than ten percent of children have a stutter by the age of four but they score just as high as other children on tests designed to judge their language, thinking skills and character. Professor Reilly's team studied over 1600 children from Melbourne, Australia. Their mothers had been filling out regular questionnaires since their babies were eight months old and the children were judged by a range of language and behaviour tests when they reached the age of four. Reilly and her colleagues asked the parents to call the study group if their children started showing signs of stuttering. Diagnoses were confirmed by a researcher, who then visited the homes of children with a stutter every month to check on their progress. By the age of four, 181 of the children studied had been diagnosed with a stutter. Follow-up visits to the 181 children who were judged after diagnoses showed just nine no longer had a stutter one year later. Stuttering children scored 5. 5 points higher than that of their non-stuttering children on language tests and 2. 6 points higher on the test of non-verbal intelligence. The researchers said it was possible that stuttering could improve language skills, or that stuttering could result from very fast language development among some children. The research suggests parents of children who stutter are usually advised to wait a year before looking for treatment --which can be expensive -- to see if the stutter goes away by itself, unless the children become very unhappy or stop talking. According to Reilly, parents should make a telephone to the study members when   _  . A) they wanted to turn in the questionnaires B) their children were rude to other people C) they wanted to seek some practical advice D) their children had a symptom of stuttering
D

Uncertainty spreads through our lives so thoroughly that it dominates our language. Our everyday speech is made up in large part of words like probably, many, soon, great, little. What do these words mean?Such verbal expression is not necessarily to be criticized. Indeed, it has a value just because it allows us to express judgments when a precise quantitative statement is out of the question. We have been trying to pin down by experiments what people mean by these expressions in specific contexts, and how the meanings change with age. For instance, a subject is told "There are many trees in the park" and is asked to say what number the word many mean to him. Or a child is invited to take "some" sweets from a bowl and we then count how many he has taken. We compare the number he takes when he is alone with the number when one or more other children are present and are to take some sweets after him, or with the number he takes when told to give "some" sweets to another child. First, we find that the number depends, of course, on the items involved. To most people some friends means about five, while some trees means about twenty. However, unrelated areas sometimes show parallel values. For instance, the language of probability seems to mean about the same thing in predictions about the weather and about politics: the expression "is certain to" (rain, or be elected) signifies to the average person about a 70 percent chance; "is likely to", about a 60 percent chance; "probably will" about 55 percent. Secondly, the size of the population of items influences the value assigned to an expression. Thus, if we tell a subject to take "a few" or " a lot of" glass balls from a box, he will take more if the box contains a large number of glass balls than if it has a small number. But not proportionately more: if we increase the number of glass balls eight times, the subject takes only half as large a percentage of the total. Thirdly, there is a marked change with age. Among children between six and fourteen years old, the... Why do we do experiments with the words "many" and "some"? A) To prove people are insensitive to these words. B) To prove the words dominate our everyday speech. C) To find out how the meanings vary with age and contexts. D) To find out whether the words can mean a precise quantity.
C

There was once a rich old _ ) in England who lived a very rich life. When King John, who was the worst king that England ever had, heard of the way in which the abbot lived, he decided to stop it. So he sent for the old man and said, "Your fault is clear, and unless you can answer me three questions within two weeks, your head shall be cut off, and all your money shall be mine. Firstly, you must tell me just how long I shall live. Secondly, you must tell me how long I shall ride round the whole world, and lastly, you shall tell me what I think."       The abbot went to Oxford and Cambridge for help but not one of the teachers in the great schools could. At last, sad and sorrowful, he rode towards home. Then he met his shepherd   and told him all that had happened.        "Cheer up, good master. I think I can help you out of your trouble."        The shepherd dressed himself up with great care and looked just like the abbot. Then he went to the king.        "How long shall I live?" "You will live until the day that you die, and not one day longer."        "How long shall I ride round the world?" "You must rise with the sun, and you must ride with the sun until it rises again the next morning. As soon as you do that, you will find that you have ridden round the world in twenty-four hours."        "What do I think?" "You think that I am the abbot. But, to tell you the truth, I am only his poor shepherd, and I come to beg your pardon for him and for me."         The king laughed long. "Very well then, you have won the old abbot a free pardon from King John for this joke." Who helped the abbot out of his trouble? A) The king. B) The abbot himself. C) The abbot's shepherd. D) Teachers from Oxford and Cambridge.
C

Norman Cousins was a businessman from the United States who often traveled around the world on business. He enjoyed his work and traveling. Then, after returning to the United States from a busy and tiring trip to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics( USSR),Mr. Cousins got sick. Because he had pushed his body to the limit of its strength on the trip, a chemical change began to take place inside him. The material between his bones became weak. In less than one week after his return, he could not stand. Every move that he made was painful. He was not able to sleep at night. The doctore told him that they did not know how to cure Mr. Cousins ' problem and he might never get over the illness. Mr. Cousins, however, refused to give up hope. Mr. Cousins thought that unhappy thoughts were causing bad chemical changes in his body. He did not want to take medicine to cure himself. Instead,he felt that happy thoughts or laughter might cure his illness.       .' He began to experiment on himself while still in hospital by watching funny shows on television. Mr. Cousins quickly found that 10 minutes of real laughter during the day gave him two hours of pain -free sleep at night. Deciding that the doctors could not help him, Mr. Cousins left the hospital and checked into a hotel room where he could continue his experiments with laughter. For eight days,Mr. Cousins rested in the hotel room watching funny shows on television,reading funny books,and sleeping whenever he felt tired. Within three weeks,he felt well enough to take a vacation to Puerto . Rico where he began running on the beach for exercise. After a few months,Mr. Cousins returned to work. He has laughed himself back to health. How long did it take before Mr. Cousins went back, to work? A) A few weeks. B) A few months. C) A few hours. D) A few years.

B